Share your FIRE Milestones - 2013- 2020

[YakGrl]

AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]

Congratulations Markola! Time to celebrate!

 

[ArmchairMillionaire23]

AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]

Congrats! Are you worried about healthcare? Insurance?

 

[Markola]

Congratulations Markola! Time to celebrate!

Congrats! Are you worried about healthcare? Insurance?

Thank you! I spent the day calling staff and peers with my announcement.

Yes, I’m worried about healthcare and insurance, since I am a citizen of the Unites States, where it’s nothing but a worry. I do have a plan, however, which is to buy COBRA for 18 months with our same HSA-eligible HealthPartners plan, then transition to a different HSA-eligible HealthPartners plan, probably a silver one, on our state’s exchanges. We use an assigned Vanguard Personal Advisor, who had us complete their health expense projection tool,and the resulting projected costs are built into our financial plan. There is no more important expense than insurance, so with DW 57 and me 54, we will just have to fund that first until Medicare and make the rest work. I’ve been an avid budgeter for years and our plan has a high success rate, so I hope it will work. Of course, there’s no real security in having a job, certain politicians seem determined to destroy the remaining tatters of the safety net, and nothing is guaranteed for anyone, but we don’t want to work forever.

 

[Octogirl]

I gave a 1 month notice this morning for my very part time (8 hours/week) NP position. When its time to go, its time to go.

Feeling very happy about the decision.

 

[Markola]

I gave a 1 month notice this morning for my very part time (8 hours/week) NP position. When its time to go, its time to go.

Feeling very happy about the decision.

Woot, Woot! It’s so true, you know when you know. Congrats!

 

[FIRED2018]

Yes, I’m worried about healthcare and insurance, since I am a citizen of the Unites States, where it’s nothing but a worry.

Funny, one man’s partisan rhetoric is another’s simple fact.

Early today, in a thread on Choice Architecture, I think it was you who wrote “We don’t need or like that kind of partisan rhetoric around here.”

Do you think your remarks about USA healthcare can be seen as partisan rhetoric?

Congratulations on retiring early! It’s a wonderful opportunity ahead - enjoy!

 

[schellem]

I guess I just feel I could use some advice from others who are about 5 years away from retirement or those who remember what it was like when they were looking at retirement in around 5 years.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

First congratulations! The big new change coming up during retirement that I never thought about until a few years out was that you have to switch from savings mode to spending mode. That is a big mental change and a whole new concept. You've learned to save for years, now you have to learn how to spend it.

I suggest you start thinking about tracking your expenses, knowing how much you need to live on a year is a requirement to determine when you can retire. Health insurance, which will probably be your biggest expense, plays a big factor in retiring.

Pre and early retirement gives you a bit of time to also do some tax planning. A great time to do ROTH conversions to void the tax torpedo is post retirement but pre SS.

Finally you also need to start thinking about what you will do to fill the days in retirement. Again another big change from having a 40 hour structured week to suddenly having no structure.

 

[Rowej]

Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.

 

[Dtail]

Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.

Congrats. Good job. Relief.

 

[Calico]

Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.

Congratulations! I still remember the feeling I had the day I paid off my house. I did the same thing - I diligently made double payments for years, and cut a 30-yr mortgage down to 15 years. Enjoy the feeling!

 

[scrabbler1]

Today I passed one of the biggest milestones, I paid off the house. Been very diligent making double house payments for the last 7 years! Wasn’t easy, but feels great today! Now every other week, direct deposit into the after tax retirement. Already max out the 401k and contribute 12% of my salary into Deferred Comp plan. I feel very relieved to do before my 58th birthday in 5 months.

When I paid off my mortgage after 9 years, in 1998, the money I used in my taxable account was very quickly replaced, from my rising salary and the cap gains from the late 1990s booming markets.

Reducing my monthly expenses in 1998 was a key early step toward improving my life. By 2001, I was able to easily switch to working part-time because 60% of my full-time paycheck could still cover my expenses with something left over. I did lose some of the company match because that's based on actual salary, not that that upset me. My ER plans were ramping up, so my priority was building up my taxable account because that would have to carry me from my ER age (45ish) to at least age ~59.5, something it is still doing today at age 57.

 

[4nursebee]

Spouse retired late last year.
Accounts have grown some (many X's)
I am expecting to go from full time to part time this week (or at least take start the transition to this position).

It is amazing to reflect back over my life and see how things have worked out.

 

[BarbH29]

AM2023, My wife uses the Rule of 55 and I will, too, starting in a couple of weeks. I just gave my notice this morning![emoji898]

Congratulations! I will be using the 55 rule as well! A lot of people are not aware of it!

 

[RioIndy]

Congrats to everyone's various bits of good news in the last while!

I just hit a small milestone myself: as of today my NW just hit 900k for the first time (with TFSA just under 140k), it's not the BIG ONE, but FIRECalc reports 100% success rate!

An additional odd side to this milestone: I believe I am now worth more than the rest of my family combined (parents and siblings) (I also make money for the rest of the family)

Now I've been allowing myself to re-contemplate what kinds of things might inspire me to aim higher, such as perhaps an upgrade to my home.

 

[street]

^ absolutely great milestone! I'm happy for your success.

 

[ArmchairMillionaire23]

First congratulations! The big new change coming up during retirement that I never thought about until a few years out was that you have to switch from savings mode to spending mode. That is a big mental change and a whole new concept. You've learned to save for years, now you have to learn how to spend it.

I suggest you start thinking about tracking your expenses, knowing how much you need to live on a year is a requirement to determine when you can retire. Health insurance, which will probably be your biggest expense, plays a big factor in retiring.

Pre and early retirement gives you a bit of time to also do some tax planning. A great time to do ROTH conversions to void the tax torpedo is post retirement but pre SS.

Finally you also need to start thinking about what you will do to fill the days in retirement. Again another big change from having a 40 hour structured week to suddenly having no structure.

As far as tracking my expenses, I've tried tracking where every penny went down to every purchase but gave up due to it feeling pointless spending so much time doing it. I know how much we bring in each year after taxes, I know how much we put aside for retirement and savings, therefore our annual spending pretty much equals the difference.
Healthcare? Who knows where we'll be in 2025. I think I'll have to see what happens from now until then considering the pandemic, the 2020 elections, the 2024 elections, the economy... I'd love to be able to think I could leave my job when I'm 54+ and just be able to find affordable health insurance but if we both retire from our full-time jobs we might have to find meaningful part-time work just for the insurance and who knows if that will even be available in our area at that time.
As far as what we'll do to occupy our time? We've both thought of volunteering, at least to the extent of what's available in our small community. We'd also really like to move to an area that didn't involve six months of shoveling snow. Financially we'd be able to do it but we might have family obligations to consider in the area we live in now.

 

[jollystomper]

We finally did it. After going back and forth on it in my 2 years of retirement, we have paid our mortgage off. It was primarily the "earning more on your money that the interest rate on your mortgage" situation. Our mortgage rate was just 2.875%. But with cash starting to pile up again due to both overestimating our retirement expenses and the pandemic, and savings/CD rates so low (and likely staying that way for a long time), we "saw the light" and have paid off the remaining $50K balance. It still leaves us at less than 80% of our planned spending so far in retirement.

The timing was interesting:
- We bought the house in 1990, and the original mortgage was a 30 year fixed rate. So we are "on schedule" with the original mortgage timing, even after refinancing 4 times.
- Our last refinance was in 2013, to a 15 year mortgage. So it is almost exactly halfway through that mortgage that we are paying it off.

We are still waiting for all the paperwork, but it is great to login to our mortgage account and see a balance of $0.00.

 

[Rowej]

Congratulations!!, I paid mine off June 30th, 11 years early. The feeling is great, got the payoff letter from WFC yesterday. No more “Slave to the lender” we don’t own anyone anything.

We finally did it. After going back and forth on it in my 2 years of retirement, we have paid our mortgage off. It was primarily the "earning more on your money that the interest rate on your mortgage" situation. Our mortgage rate was just 2.875%. But with cash starting to pile up again due to both overestimating our retirement expenses and the pandemic, and savings/CD rates so low (and likely staying that way for a long time), we "saw the light" and have paid off the remaining $50K balance. It still leaves us at less than 80% of our planned spending so far in retirement.

The timing was interesting:
- We bought the house in 1990, and the original mortgage was a 30 year fixed rate. So we are "on schedule" with the original mortgage timing, even after refinancing 4 times.
- Our last refinance was in 2013, to a 15 year mortgage. So it is almost exactly halfway through that mortgage that we are paying it off.

We are still waiting for all the paperwork, but it is great to login to our mortgage account and see a balance of $0.00.

 

[AreWeThereYet0]

Logged into my Fidelity account and it showed over 1M for the first time. I have officially saved 1M on my own investments. (I have some more money I got from a trust fund that had already pushed me over 1M plus my emergency fund.) So proud of myself for my accomplishments. Only have 85K left on the house.

 

[compounder]

Logged into my Fidelity account and it showed over 1M for the first time. I have officially saved 1M on my own investments. (I have some more money I got from a trust fund that had already pushed me over 1M plus my emergency fund.) So proud of myself for my accomplishments. Only have 85K left on the house.

Congratulations and nice job! You should be very proud
I am very close to this milestone too, and hope to hit it yet this year

 

[Markola]

Logged into my Fidelity account and it showed over 1M for the first time. I have officially saved 1M on my own investments. (I have some more money I got from a trust fund that had already pushed me over 1M plus my emergency fund.) So proud of myself for my accomplishments. Only have 85K left on the house.

Unicorns should be proud!

 

[ER_Hopeful]

did a tally today, $1.005 mil. I'm officially a millionaire Took 13 years, wished I'd been more aggressive early on and ditch the target funds, then I'd have made it sooner. Oh, well, hindsight is 20/20. Have a few more years to go so now I'm shooting for 1.5 mil.

 

[Dtail]

did a tally today, $1.005 mil. I'm officially a millionaire Took 13 years, wished I'd been more aggressive early on and ditch the target funds, then I'd have made it sooner. Oh, well, hindsight is 20/20. Have a few more years to go so now I'm shooting for 1.5 mil.

Congrats. Your 2nd million should be quicker.

 

[HI Bill]

did a tally today, $1.005 mil. I'm officially a millionaire Took 13 years

Congrats! The first $1M is the hardest. The second should take less than 7 years, and as you approach the third, your earnings on investments might just eclipse your annual w#rk earnings. The snowball starts to gather speed and mass! If COVID doesn't totally derail the world economy, you should have eclipsed your $1.5M goal prior to your planned 2028 FIRE date!

 

[street]

Congratulations!